How to Securely Consume an API in Django REST and Serve It to Angular Clients

Learn how to safely consume an API in Django REST and serve it to your Angular application without exposing sensitive credentials.
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Consuming an API in Django REST and Serving It to Angular

In modern web applications, separating the backend and frontend is a common practice that enhances security and scalability. In this post, we will discuss how to take your Angular application that consumes an external API and funnel it through a Django REST backend. This process secures your API credentials and improves data handling.

The Problem: Reducing Risk with API Credentials

When developing applications, exposing your API credentials is a serious concern. Initially, the architecture of your application may look like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This setup directly connects your Angular client with an external API, putting your credentials at risk. To improve on this, you can re-structure your application to go through a Django REST framework (DRF) backend before hitting the external data service.

The desired architecture becomes:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

However, knowing how to create the correct API flow can be confusing. In this guide, we will simplify this task and show you how to set it up effectively.

The Solution: Setting Up API Consumption in Django REST

1. Define the Django API Endpoint

Your first step is to define the API endpoint in Django. Use a function-based view (FBV) to connect to the external API. Below is a sample implementation:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Explanation of the Code:

The function animals_view() takes an optional key parameter, which you can pass from the Angular frontend (e.g., /api/animals/cow).

The requests.get() method fetches data from the external API using API_URL and your API_KEY securely.

The data is then converted to JSON and returned to your Angular app.

2. Reacting to Frontend Requests in Angular

From the Angular side, you'll set up your HTTP requests to call this Django API endpoint. Here's how:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This approach keeps your API key hidden and only exposes the relevant data to Angular.

3. No Need for Database Models (Unless Desired)

In this setup, there’s no immediate need to create database models to store responses from the external API. The purpose of this architecture is to act as a proxy to fetch data on demand. However, if you need to log transformations or store data for caching purposes, you can certainly implement Django models.

4. Data Availability Notification to Frontend

For your Angular frontend to know when the data is ready, you can rely on standard HTTP response handling. The Angular app will receive the JSON response once the Django server successfully fetches the data, making it ready to be displayed to users immediately.

Conclusion: Secure Data Handling with Django REST and Angular

By following the above and creating a deliberate separation between your Angular frontend and Django REST backend, you can securely consume external APIs without exposing sensitive data. Remember that a properly structured architecture not only protects your credentials but also allows for maintainability and easier updates in the future.

Take the time to implement these best practices, and you'll find that managing data securely across different technologies isn’t just safe – it’s also straightforward!

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